Failing Grades For City Colleges

In the best of worlds, the City Colleges of Chicago would be a stepping-stone for high school students on their way to a four-year college

education and a good job. But reality keeps intruding.

The reality is that the Chicago public schools produce fewer and fewer students who fit the ideal for City Colleges. Many young people drop out of high school, scuffle around and come back years later to a City College campus looking for help when they can`t get a job that pays a living wage. Many graduate from high school without the basic skills to succeed in any college- level course.

The reality is that the task has changed for the City Colleges. While they still serve many young people as an inexpensive bridge between high school and university, thousands of others come to them looking for basic instruction so they can function in the city. They want to learn English as a second language, or a job skill, or the reading, writing and arithmetic they should have learned in high school. But leaders of the City Colleges system, while they say they recognize this new task, haven`t responded as dramatically as the underlying demographic and educational realities demand.

A new University of Chicago study details the ironies of life in the City Colleges. There are clean, brightly lit classrooms on the eight campuses, but many are empty much of the day because of radically diminished enrollment in university transfer programs.

Meanwhile, many basic skills courses-in literacy, English language, preparation for a high-school equivalency diploma-are taught with poor texts in dreary rooms by part-time instructors who often don`t have teaching certificates.

College officials quarrel with most of the statistics and conclusions in the study, but its findings simply confirm and amplify the disturbing news of previous reports: The student who actually gets a degree from the City Colleges is one of a rare breed.

Chancellor Nelvia Brady and members of the college board acknowledge that they have become the port of call for a new kind of student. They acknowledge that they haven`t done a particularly good job in dealing with them. But they promise that changes are coming. Board Chairman Reynaldo Glover says cuts in unneeded spending and a redirection of money to job training and literacy classes will be made.

But there are disturbing signs that the unglamorous job of preparing people to function in today`s world is still neglected, while the college system clings to a bloated, expensive junior college ideal.

Ask school officials how many satellite sites they have offering basic skills classes, and the answers vary wildly: 350? 500? 548? Everybody has a different guess. One good guess, though, is that the management and accountability of the programs is appalling.

College officials talk confidently about revamping the system. Yet an astonishing 98 percent of their professors have tenure, creating a kind of administrative gridlock. They`re in the middle of a four-year contract that granted 7 percent annual raises and perks like contributions to their auto insurance premiums.

Instead of merely talking a good game, officials need to take immediate steps to professionalize the adult learning skills programs-providing qualified counselors, adequate textooks, teachers with experience in working with adults. They should provide more space on the campuses for basic skills programs, rather than relegating them to basements and barracks buildings while better-equipped classrooms sit empty.

Recent criticism of the colleges raised a cry from students, and some politicians, that one or more of the college campuses would be closed. No campus should be closed. They are underused, but to shut down one would write off a whole region of the city and be a concession to failure. If the concern is to economize or to make better use of resources, move the central administration onto a campus facility.

Ultimately, responsibility for the City Colleges falls on the mayor, who appoints the seven-member college board. Later this year, he must appoint or reappoint three board members. When he mulls those choices, all this should be kept in mind.